Diethylaminoethyl p-butylaminobenzoate hydrochloride

Tetracaine (N,N-dimethylaminoethyl-4-butylaminobenzoate) and related N,N-dialkylaminoethyl substituted benzoic acid esters have been used to characterize the high-affinity binding site for aromatic amine noncompetitive antagonists in the Torpedo nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR). [(3)H]Tetracaine binds at equilibrium to a single site with a K(eq) value of 0.5 microM in the absence of agonist or presence of alpha-bungarotoxin and with a K(eq) value of 30 microM in the presence of agonist (i.e., for nAChR in the desensitized state). Preferential binding to nAChR in the absence of agonist is also seen for N,N-DEAE and N,N-diethylaminopropyl esters, both binding with 10-fold higher affinity in the absence of agonist than in the presence, and for the 4-ethoxybenzoic acid ester of N, N-diethylaminoethanol, but not for the 4-amino benzoate ester (procaine). Irradiation at 302 nm of nAChR-rich membranes equilibrated with [(3)H]tetracaine resulted in covalent incorporation with similar efficiency into nAChR alpha, beta, gamma, and delta subunits. The pharmacological specificity of nAChR subunit photolabeling as well as its dependence on [(3)H]tetracaine concentration establish that the observed photolabeling is at the high-affinity [(3)H]tetracaine-binding site. Within alpha subunit, >/=95% of specific photolabeling was contained within a 20-kilodalton proteolytic fragment beginning at Ser(173) that contains the M1 to M3 hydrophobic segments. With all four subunits contributing to [(3)H]tetracaine site, the site in the closed channel state of the nAChR is most likely within the central ion channel domain.

Local anesthetics have been shown to be extractable from human whole blood samples by direct immersion (DI) solid phase microextraction (SPME).After deproteinization with perchloric acid, the pH of the clear supernatants of human whole blood samples containing the drugs were adjusted to about 7 with 10 M NaOH in the presence of NaCl; a polydimethylsiloxane-coated SPME fiber was then immersed directly into the sample solution to allow adsorption of the drugs before capillary gas chromatog. (GC) with flame ionization detection.The DI-SPME for 1-mL whole blood gave peaks for all the drugs; only a small amount of background noise appeared and this gave no problems in the detection of the drugs.Recoveries of the ten drugs from human whole blood was 0.74-19.7%.The calibration curves for seven drugs showed linearity in the range of 0.25-12 μg mL^-1 whole blood, with detection limits of 54-158 ng mL^-1.